October 31, 2011

Golden Birthday

Saturday was my golden birthday and despite sniffles, sneezes and a scratchy throat, I had a lovely, blizzard brunch with a few friends at my favorite North Brooklyn spot, Anella. If you're there for brunch, I dare you not to get the maple toasted pecan & banana french toast. It is unequivocally the best french toast on the planet.

My dad thinks early snowstorms are auspicious, and I have to agree with him. I take it as a sign of a fatefully good year to come (knock on wood). And besides, there's nothing cozier than drinking a hot mug of coffee by candlelight in a warm room with your friends, while winds are whipping and the snow is fluttering past the window outside.

S + V gifted me the amazing new cookbook by Ferran Adria, The Family Meal. The book is organized by meals for every occasion, and the instructions for every recipe are illustrated by beautiful annotated photographs. Each of the ingredients needed to create each meal are also photographed before the recipes are presented. I'm so excited to cook from this. J + J gave me "Jeu Du Tigre," a french balancing game, which I fell in love with based on the packaging alone. CP sent me a gorgeous new chef's knife and a copy of Christina Tosi's Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook. I see a lot of Milk Bar-inspired baking happening at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And JBK took me to see Traces, which describes itself as "high energy urban acrobatics" and combines theater, music, tumbling, aerials, pole work, skateboarding and dance into a 90 minute show. I can't urge you to go enough; the show is in New York for a 5-month stint at the Union Square Theater.